Upcycling Jeans

My hooligans are horrendously hard on the knees of their jeans. The kindergartener just outgrew a pair, and since the knees were ripped out, I thought I’d upcycle them for Princess Thundercloud.

I may have mentioned a time or thirty that rainbows rock at our house. Oh, and Thundercloud was not actually skateboarding without a helmet…she stood on it for like 10 seconds while I took this photo. And I probably could have caught her if she started to slip. She’s much more coordinated than her brothers, though, so she rarely falls, which is a nice change.

I had this t-shirt material in my stash, bought for who knows what who knows when. I just cut a couple of 4” wide strips from it for the ruffle. I cut the legs off the jeans just above the crotch and far enough below the back pockets that I wouldn’t sew on them, about 1/2”.

First I sewed the two ruffle pieces together to make one long strip. At this point, a prudent sewer would stitch a running stitch along the top and carefully gather it into the correct length ruffle. As a general rule, ruffles take about 1-1/2 times the finished length you need. Being impatient, and only having 30 minutes for this project before picking up the Princess, I gathered the ruffle material onto the cut edge of the jeans. I stopped when I was about 6” from the end, estimated how much I needed, and cut off the rest of the ruffle strip. I sewed the ends together, then finished ruffling it onto the jeans.

I hemmed it using a zigzag stitch, just to be a little decorative. I was even using rainbow thread. I’m the coolest. Just ask my kids.

Just as a heads up, I may or not post next week. The GI and I are headed to an Army conference and my mom will be here with the hooligans. Say an extra prayer for her and her sanity! If I can figure out how to blog on the iPad, I might do a post or two. Don’t hold your breath, though.

Now if I could only get the housekeeping and laundry fairy to show up so I could take a nap…the snowplow rudely awakened me at 2:30 this morning. When we got home from swim and ballet lessons last night, there was not a bit of snow or rain. By the time the plow came, I was shocked to see about 6 inches on the ground. I’m certain the forecast at 6:00 last night said no more than a trace! Oh, well, I’m happy to see it, even if it is two days before we fly to warmer climes.

Have a fabulous weekend, snow or sun, and be green…or rainbow-ish…and upcycle something!